Here we are, then, all post-first-chemo. I wanted to hold off on an update for a while to see how I'd feel, but all excuses are now gone.

I feel fine.

Yesterday I went into work, having popped several painkillers before bed. One the freezing was gone in my tooth, it turned into a pretty unpleasant evening, so I ended up getting no marking done. Slept well until about 2:30, then thrashed around frustrated until the alarm went off.

The day was as normal as it could be, with big medicine planned for later. Went happily along to my ESOL meeting, and was chatting afterwards with one of my colleagues about her impending root canal. I was blithely telling her about my experience the night before, when Connie broke in:

C: You did what?
P: Errrr, I went to the dentist and he started a root canal.
C: WHAT??
P: (sputtering) I went to the dentist-
C: WHY did you do that??
P: I had a toothache! I figured I needed a filling and I ought to get it done before starting treatment.
C: You aren't supposed to have anything like that done before starting chemotherapy! What were you thinking??
P: I was thinking that my tooth hurt and I needed a filling! I didn't know he was going to do a root canal and that I shouldn't have one!

I won't detail it all here. Suffice to say that the voices were raised. Connie was scandalised, and that she was perfectly right to be. I, of course, had blithely bumbled my way into a situation that I should not have placed myself in, completely unaware that I shouldn't have.

In my defense, I didn't know that I shouldn't have had dental work. In my defense, I DID ask the dentist about whether it would be a problem, he DID know that I was starting chemo the next day, and he DID say that it would be ok. And in my defense, I DID have a toothache.

However, Connie was right. And was also well within her rights to tell me so, repeatedly, throughout the morning as we waited to see the oncologist. All I can do is plead ignorance, and hope that she forgives it. I mean, I have been ill, after all, and no one had yet issued me with a list of 'thou shalls and thou shalt nots'.

We arrived in the oncologist's office, and Connie had told her about my misdemeanour before I had even taken my seat. I sat there, shamed-puppy that I was, while the two of them shook their heads at my idiocy, and the oncologist told me that I had been very dumb (or something like that) but that there was no way around it- my heart was fine, and I was having chemo no matter what. She looked at my tooth, breathed a sigh of relief that the dentist had put in a temporary filling, and then ordered the meds. She also took the dentist's number, I fear to call him up and tell him that he is a divot. I hope not. He will be drilling my tooth again in a week or so, and it never is a good idea to upset one's dentist.

We went through the list of things to know again, and this time I was careful to ask about all the things I am allowed/advised to do/not do. I am allowed to do whatever I want, I just can't let myself get tired doing it. I must avoid raw foods, and am only allowed one glass of wine a night. Sigh. Otherwise, the biggest news was that I would not experience nausea after all. Plenty of tingling and aches and pains and my hair will definitely come out, but no nausea, not until after the surgery. So, all the bulking up I have done in the last month, thinking that I'd need some strength? Not needed. All this additional padding looks set to stay exactly where it is.

And I don't mean to complain, certainly not about something that means I get to live. But here's the list:
I am sick.
I am having chemotherapy.
I am having a lump removed from my breast.
They are not going to do reconstructive surgery to amend things afterwards, because the tumour is so small, and certainly not do anything cosmetic to the other one. (Some people get whole boob jobs out of this!)
I will go through the menopause.
I will have a hysterectomy.
I will lose my hair.
I will not lose weight.
I have had one root canal started, and need another one.
And I'm NOT able to drink through it.

I am very grateful that I shall one day be fit and healthy.

So, having waved off Connie- for whom I am always thankful, shouting and all- I registered with the money people (weird process, and again, I miss nationalised health care) had a quick bite to eat and then trudged along to the women's cancer ward. I was escorted from there to the RIGHT cancer ward, where the actual business was going to be attended to.

It was a long room, lined on both sides with narrow cots, IV racks, and chairs. All beds were filled but one- mine. Fourteen people, all being quietly administered to: all ages and shapes and sizes, and now colours. The youngest girl, about fourteen, wore a baseball cap over her sparse hair. Her mother sat on the chair next to her, talking in low tones. Across from me, an elderly gentleman sat on his cot, looking tired and defeated; his wife was alert and still beside him, moving occasionally to twitch at his blanket or fetch him a drink. I was not the only one there on my own. Some people seemed practised at it.

The nurses moved around in quiet efficiency, again, needing few words to issue their instructions. My blood pressure was taken, and I was led to my cot. I was not the first one to have used it. I had brought a hand towel with me, and laid it over the pillow- there were more things to worry about in that room than a few hairs on a pillowcase. This disease bites.

They were pretty insistent that I lay down. I guess they don't want us drag racing up and down the corridor with the IV racks in tow. They checked and double-checked the bottles and bags, gave me an idea of the process - one bottle/bag would take an hour and a half, the next would take three- inserted the needle, and left me to it. I may have lasted five minutes checking work emails, before falling asleep.

The room was not quiet. People coming and going, phones ringing, the occasional cry, lights flicking. No one feels obliged to lower their voices, and the cubicles are divided only by curtains and are inches apart. However, I slept the sleep of the virtuous for nearly two hours, only really coming to when they came to change the drip. The rest of the afternoon passed with emails and marking work and more dozing, before I was unplugged and sent on my way.

The friend who was booked to pick me up was sick, and the passing oncologist had basically forbidden her from coming to get me. My co-advisor came out instead, bless him, and brought Annie with him. While I waited, I sat on my own on the low wall outside the hospital's main doors. A group of Korean men were there visiting a friend, and one approached me with the 'Where are you from?' that I still get hit with occasionally, usually by taxi drivers and evangelicals on the subway. I hate being rude, REALLY I do. I have just no energy for the stranger-small-talk lately. I hope I am not doing anything to damage international relations between the nations when I cut them off. I just really liked the calm, and sitting there on my own in the breeze.

The ride home was jolly. Craig definitely has Annie's number, despite their few encounters, and readily joined me in the relentless mockery of her taste in boyfriends and unfortunate birth (ie- being MY daughter). I was, apart from a sense of other-worldliness, feeling fine. Justin and Gerald were coming over for supper, to help me eat the spaghetti sauce that Alex had given me. Six fabulous people, one paragraph. I tucked up into bed with a painkiller and half a sleeping pill, awaiting the onslaught of horror.

But I feel fine.

And like a fraud. People have been emailing me worriedly all day, asking if I'm all right. Annie has called twice this evening to see if I need her to come back from Seoul. No, I don't think so.

I woke up well at six-thirty. I have had three square meals, finished some grading, chatted with Annie, watched telly, and apart from slight disorientation, occasional tingling on my arms and being rather warm and flushed, I have no nausea or ill feeling. I do feel a little embarrassed by all the fuss and lovely attention, of course, and my Calvinist work ethic has been playing me like a harp all day: 'Why aren't you at work? There's nothing wrong with you. Your mother would have gone to work.'

Should something have happened by now? Does this mean it will all go smoothly? Isn't there a gigantic ACME anvil of yuck waiting to bite me on the nose? (May be mixing my metaphors, there) I don't want to tempt fate, but if I feel this well tomorrow, I'm going to school.  The little Warner brothers angel sitting on my shoulder won't let me stay home!

I will add one side effect that probably won't make any doctor's list: it has really affected my prose. This may be the dullest entry I've written yet! Of course, with the day being such a non-event after all that build up, it shouldn't be a surprise.

A gentle chemo would definitely be a good thing, though, to counter the long list of bad. Not sure how it measures up to the disappointment of not getting nice bosoms out of it all...